Those Unnamed Officers in Red
by Gaia'schild
Summary: Ensign Kola just did her job in Engineering before the Captain needed a mechanic for an away mission. Everyone knows that being a Red Shirt means you don't return back to the Enterprise safely, especially when your beaming into a hostile situation. Rated M for language at the end.


Nothing interesting ever happened down in Engineering, at least not in the Relay monitoring room where Ensign Kola worked. All day she sat and analysed the data coming from the computer and double checked the steam for any anomalies. With a computer as advanced as the Enterprise, it hardly mattered that she was there. But her commander, Lt Commander Scott, didn't trust the processing core to catch every anomaly in every system so he insisted in a humanoid element to check.

So following orders, Kola reported to her station every Gama shift and did her duty gratefully because a chance to work on the Enterprise under the Dream Team at her age was worth doing some of the worst jobs available in Engineering. She had just joined Starfleet Academy when Captain Kirk and Commander Spock almost single-handedly saved the Federation from complete destruction at the hands of a Romulan, and had studied with all her might for a change to serve under them. Scoring higher than anyone else in class on her Engineering exams, she had been guaranteed a place on the proud Flagship. Doing something_ important_. Something _fun_. Ensign Kola had been wrong.

Everyone had talked about the incredible heroic escapades and saves that the Enterprise had done during its first five year exploration mission, so much so that is seemed that the crew dashed from one disaster to the next without time to breathe. She was beginning to feel that most of the stories of glory had been fabricated.

It had been twelve days since anything had happened. There had been no gaseous clouds to examine, no space craft left adrift in space to save, and no unknown planet to explore. Not that Kola would have been taken to any of them, she was too far down on the list of crew to even be deemed important, but the gossip would be appreciated. Anything to break the monotony of staring at a screen for hours of a day. Space, she knew, was big—no one ever really explains how empty it is.

So here Ensign Kola sat in the quiet of her little room in Engineering, monitoring relays in the hope that one of them broke so she could repair it and do _something_. At least until Lt. Commander Scott came into her station with another Ensign behind him.

"Lassie, yer're gonna need ta come wit' meh," ordered her commanding officer. "Ensign Letov will be takin' o'er yer station but yer gonna need ta grab yer relay repair kit and join meh in tha transporta room. The Captain need someone ta fix a broken ship's bits an' yer the best I've got fer the job." And just like that, her world changed.

The ensign quickly grabbed her special relay repair kit, full of other tools and parts that were not regulation, but useful, and jogged to the transporter room. Lt. Commander Scott was already there and giving instructions to the Crewman on duty. Kola knew Crewman Tanksha, a humanoid from a colony near Vulcan, fairly well; the pair enjoyed playing 3D chess in the mess hall on Monday nights in the hopes of one day beating Ensign Chekov. Kola smiled at her friend as she stepped onto the platform and prepared to energize to the ship that she assumed was only minorly damaged. Why else would she have been called?

Her commander turned towards her finally and gave her a strange look.

"Now lass, Ah need ye ta listen ta meh. Tha ship's communicator are doon and the captain hopes ta be friendly like an' fix 'um before anything turns ugly. We're only helping these pirates oot of good grace. Hopin' ta look good ta everyone else. Ah dinnae ken what Captain thinks will happen. Keep calm, an' stay quiet. Good luck lassie, Ah wish Ah could go instead." There was a cascade of bright shining lights and Tanksha's glowing smile of encouragement was replaced by the grey metallic walls of the alien ship. A filthy woman with a green skirt led her down to the ship's engineering room where things were already slightly strained even to her untrained eye.

The Captain turned to face her just as she was wishing she had commed in sick this shift and smiled brightly at her. Somehow that smile seemed to say that he had everything under control and there was nothing to worry about. Kola found herself smiling back at him without any reason.

"Now you see," the captain turned to face the pirate in the front of the group with a red silk band around his head, "I told you I would get my best person to fix your communication system, and here she is. May not look like much but you should see her go. Surprises me sometimes." Her captain pushed her forward toward the relay panel that had been already opened near him.

Glancing around at all the unfriendly faces surrounding her, Kola looked back at her captain. He gave her a serious face and a slow nod. That did not seem like the bright confident man who smiled brightly at her only moments before. Squaring her shoulders, she looked at the relay panel in front of her.

It truly wasn't that bad to be frank. Anyone with any experience could have fixed this problem within a few hours with the help of a PADD showing them which circuits and wires had fused together or just burnt up completely. Then again, very few people had spent as much time around these things as she had. Hopefully with the materials in her kit, the panel would be fixed within ten minutes and then she could go back to the Enterprise and forget her wish to ever leave the safety of the ship again. Pulling out her wrench, she started pulling out all the defective pieces of wiring that could not be salvaged. Pretending that this was just another simulation at Starfleet Academy, she pushed aside the tension and stares in the room just as easily as she had while being tested. Nothing mattered but the tools in her hand and the task in front of her.

Beating her own estimate, she turned to face her captain after only seven or so standard Earth minutes. "All fixed Captain," she reported, "there was also a slight problem in the translation section that I repaired as well. It would have become a problem within a standard week without fixing, sir." Carefully Ensign Kola packed up her kit and hoped her voice hadn't wavered as she reported, and she doubled check the information on her PADD.

"Quite kind of your pretty mechanic to fix something that our seemingly competent engineer failed to catch," growled the red silk man. Kola didn't particularly enjoy the undertone in his voice and stepped quickly behind her Captain as he spoke.

"I'm sure he would have caught it soon. My Ensign just specializes in this sort of repair work, can't fix a warp transducer if she tried. You said your mechanic managed to do to that. Might have been a little too busy to see something that trivial. If you would be so kind to lead us to the transporter room?"

Red silk man paused for a moment as if to think over this thought before nodding silently, "Risna, take them both to the transporter; if you can't fix things properly then maybe you should play with simple buttons again. Captain Kirk, you have my thanks."

A man toward the back with a blue stained shirt pursed his lips as he stepped forward and saluted his leader before gesturing to the Starfleet personnel. Risna led the two of them and the pirate leader up to the transporter in total silence; Kola made sure to stay as close to her Captain without standing on him. The mounting tension seemed to break upon reaching their destination.

Her Captain smiled at Red Silk man, "Pleasure meeting you, and I hope you don't run into any more trouble out here from those pesky Klingons. There may not be a Federation ship around willing to help."

Red Silk man just gave a blacken grin in return, "Yes, I hope my Risna will be able to someday fix a simple problem with as much ease as a little girl. Otherwise it may become an embarrassment for him."

Captain Kirk seemed to sense that something nasty was about to happen and quickly commed the Enterprise to beam the two of them up now. But it was too late. The last comment from his leader seemed to break the pirate Risna. He rapidly drew his phaser and fired at Kola just as the sparkling lights of her ship swirled around her.

It was confusion when they materialized on their home ship. The Captain was holding her as she seemed to melt to the floor and keep on telling her to hang on. But seeing the blood on his hands as he brushed back her hair, she knew the worst. Ensign Kola was going to die on her first away mission. She was never going to hold her nieces and nephews again. Never going to talk to Blaze again.

But there was something that needed to be done first. Kola weakly reached out toward her kit, but couldn't seem to find it. Then her Commander's face was above hers and holding her kit.

"My PADD," Kola rasped as something wet began to trickle from her mouth. "Tracker," she managed to get out. And as her world began to fade she gave her last energy to smile up to her Captain and whisper one sentence. "Sorry Captain." And then the darkness grasped her fully.

~.~

Jim stared down at the covered corpse in front of him in the autopsy room in the Medical Bay. He had been staring down at the thing that had once been Ensign Kola ever since the race to track down her killers had finished. Jim had shown no mercy to those pirates, those killers. Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice shame on you.

He felt more than heard his friend approach him from his office in the Med Bay. Without turning to him he quietly remarked, "Did you know her first name was Ivy? She grew up in the Antarctic on Earth with her three brothers, a mother, and a father who I had to just inform that their daughter had died in the line of duty." He paused for a moment to stop from tearing up. "And then I got to contact her fiancé on the USS Mandela and tell him that she would never get to walk down the aisle with him."

Jim turned to face Bones. "And you know what's the worst part of this all? I had to look at her records to find all this out. She was so new on this ship, only been here for three months, that I hadn't gotten around to eating with her, or finding out who she was." He slammed his hand down on the medical array in front of him. "Fucking Christ Bones… she was just twenty earth years. Younger than anyone I wanted to take. But Scotty said that she was brilliant in Engineering, and that she could do anything with a bit of wire. So I let her come on board on the condition that she stayed somewhere safe. Somewhere away from stray phaser blasts. Of course who comes to save the day? This bright eyed girl who has probably never left the damn ship. Come to save the day because there isn't enough time to find someone else with her skills because they are all asleep. SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE!"

And Bones just watched as his friend bent over the corpse of the dead Ensign and let him get his grief out.

"Her last words were 'Sorry captain.' 'Sorry Captain.' Even after she had managed to wire those fucking pirate's communication system to send out a low frequency pulse. She knew something was going to go wrong and made sure we could follow those motherfuckers."

"Why do they all die so young?"

A/N: This is for all the unknown and unnamed Red Shirts who died in any episode of Star Trek without anything beyond a name attached to them. Because they were important to someone, maybe not the Captain.


End file.
